1 Copyright 2013 by PSGCT

Abstract Nowadays, the competitiveness between companies

strongly requests continuous improvement techniques of the
manufacturing cycles. Companies that apply and sustain the
improvements have a competitive advantage over their position on
the market. J apanese quality concepts like Toyota Quality System
prove their efficiency by implementation in manufacturing
companies leading to time-saving, no stocks production, optimum
cost, high quality products. I n this sense, Value Stream Map (VSM)
represents one of the tools that detects the cause of failure and
has the capacity to prevent the effect of this failure on the whole
manufacturing chain. The paper presents the simulation of a
business process through Value Stream Map in a gear
manufacturing industry before and after implementing lean tools.

Keywords Value Stream Map, Kaizen, Gear manufacturing,
Lead time, Station cycle time.

I. INTRODUCTION
The success of the Japanese automotive industry after the
Second World War is due to the development of the Toyota
Production System (TPS). The TPS is based on the lean
thinking principles and has successfully been implemented by
numerous manufacturers in many industries around the world.
Lean manufacturing or small cost production is a
manufacturing philosophy that reduces time from the clients
order to delivery system, by eliminating wastes. In such a
competitive market, most of the companies around the world
are searching for the best methods and techniques to improve
the manufacturing systems, by reducing costs, time and
money. One of the lean techniques that help the management
in decision-making is the Value Stream Map (VSM) method
that identifies all the wastes during a process flow.


Value Stream Map is used as an improving method to
progress in implementing lean thinking and as a leading
formula in the improvement activities. It is a tool that provides
communication solutions for practitioners to obtain maximum
efficiency and definitions of theoretical development points to
become a reference among redesign techniques. As an
improvement tool, VSM simplifies the measurement of times
without added-value, so the calculation of lean coefficients is
much easier and it is possible to improve the operative actions
with strategic results.
Value Stream Map is a collection of all the actions, the add-
value ones, as well as the non value actions, which are
necessary for a full process of a product through the
technological flow, from the raw material to the client. The
final aim of the Value Stream Map is to identify all types of
wastes in the value flow and to eliminate all these wastes.
Value Stream Map is method that uses a set of predefined
standardized icons. The first step for creating the Value
Stream Map is choosing a product or a family products that we
wish to improve. Next step is drawing the current state map
for the value flow which shows the present activity. The third
step is drawing a future state map of the value flow, which
will present the way that the system should look after
eliminating all the wastes. This map becomes afterwards the
base for decision-making regarding the necessary changes in
the system [8].
This paper is focused on the analysis and use of the VSM to
get improvements by means of Group Technology and kaizen,
implemented in an efficient way in a Gear Manufacturing
industry.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Value stream refers to those specifics of the firms that add
value to the product or service under consideration and it is
necessary to map both inter- and intra-company value-adding
streams [1]. A classification scheme about seven new mapping
tools (namely, process activity mapping, supply chain
Business process analysis through value stream
mapping in a gear manufacturing industry
S.Harishankar
(1)
,Dr.K.Natarajan
(2)
, PG Scholar
(1)
,Professor
(2)
,
Department of Mechanical Engineering
(1)(2)
,PSG College of technology
(1)(2)
,Coimbatore, India,
Proceedings of the National Conference on Manufacturing Innovation Strategies & Appealing
Advancements
MISAA2013
April 19, 2013, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, India
MISAA2013-LM331

2 Copyright 2013 by PSGCT
response matrix, production variety funnel, quality filter
mapping, demand amplification mapping, decision point
analysis and physical structure mapping) and their applications
areas were suggested [2]. It was shown that unnecessary
inventory, defects, inappropriate processing and transportation
were the most serious wastes in the system, further suggested
to adopt five of the VSM tools: process activity mapping,
supply chain response matrix, quality filter mapping, demand
amplification mapping, and decision point analysis [3]. It was
noted that VSM may not serve the purpose when it is used to
map a production line which produces different types of
product families that are having different processing times and
set-up times for each processing step apart from different
number of shifts [4]. Anything other than the minimum
amount of equipment, effort, materials, parts, space, and time
that are essential to add value to the product was defined as
waste. They also told that waste takes many forms and can be
found at any time and in any place. It may be found hidden in
policies, procedures, process and product designs, and in
operations [5]. Braglia pointed out in his article that VSM is
basically a paper-and-pencil-based technique, so, the accuracy
level is limited, and the number of versions that can be
handled is low; in real situations, many companies are of a
high varietylow volume type, this requires many value
streams and cannot be addressed by simple VSM. They also
proposed an alternative and innovative framework for a














structured application of VSM to products requiring nonlinear
value streams, based on the preliminary analysis to identify
the longer critical production path using the temporized bill of
material. After identification of the critical path, possible
improvements were searched and then all sharing with
secondary paths were considered as further constraints.
Finally, when the main value stream got improved, a new path
became the critical one. Thus, the analysis proceeded
iteratively until the optimum is reached or the WIP level has
decreased under the desired level [6]. Singh et al. suggested
industries to apply VSM techniques to find money drain points
in their balance sheets and also apply these techniques to cut
down operational cost to save business during recessionary
times [7].
III. IGRAFX A PROCESS MODELING AND ANALYSING
TOOL
iGrafx Flow Charter is the most full-featured, easy to us
process modeling and analysis tool available to help
organizations understand and improve business processes.
iGrafx Flow Charter facilitates creating graphical
representations of processes allowing people to easily
comprehend business information.
iGrafx Flowcharted reduces the time it takes to document
processes and business systems, and helps to achieve a clear
understanding of how to reduce waste and costs while
increasing customer satisfaction. Here we used iGrafx to map
current state and future state of a business process.

IV. CURRENT STATE MAP

The current analyses of the business process flow are being
done in order to create a clear and common vision of the
target system in the organization, related to the current state.
For drawing the Value Stream Map for the business process
flow for the gear manufacturing, after we have identified all
the operations in the flow, we have to identify the most
important decision-making points. For each operation, we
have to establish which ones play an important role from raw
material, to the final product. In the next step we have to
identify the stocks, the productive and non-productive times
for describing the manufacturing process. The production plan
depending on the estimated mark request, the production
process, the workers and means of transportation and the














informational flow (manual and electronics information
flows), that include all the elements in a production process.
Fig.1 shows the current state map for the business process.
Data collection for the material flow started at the marketing
department, planning, production, up to dispatch, gather data
such as inventory levels before each process, process cycle
times (CTs) and changeover times (CO).
The timeline at the bottom of the current state map has two
components. The first one is the lead time is around 82.5 days.
The second one is value-added time which is 42.5 days. This
time is calculated by adding the process time on each
workstation in the value stream.

V. FUTURE STATE MAP
Methodology for drawing the future state map is based on
the continuous improvement process. For describing and
defining the future state map, several target areas for
improvement start to show up. Looking at the current state
Fig 1 Current state map

3 Copyright 2013 by PSGCT
map there can be identified: large inventories between
workstations, the big difference between the total production
lead-time (82.5 days) and the value added time (42.5 days),
and each workstation producing on its own schedule. The
inventory and the lead-time can be viewed as two related
issues since the more the inventory, the longer any part must
wait for its turn to the workstation, and thus a longer lead-
time.
First we can identify the departments that are really
constraining the continuous process flow, the marketing
department, costing department, engineering department and
product engineering department. This constrain takes place
because cycle times on each department are higher than takt
time. Cycle time on each department is above 6 days, in which
non- value added time more than value added such as manual
information flow, waiting delay before each process. To
reduce this the total lead time by electronic information
flow(ORACLE) which can be used as information hub
between each department and also cell is made to club
foundry, inward stores, and de-burring, which reduce material
movement by 11 km. Final inspection department is
eliminated and operator trained to do inspection himself.
Fig.2 shows the future state of business process, which
shows lead time is reduced around 20 days and value- added
time is 39 days.





VI. CONCLUSION
This paper presents the redesigning of a business process and
tries to connect the informational data with the operational
ones. This redesign is done by focusing the operations on
eliminating non-added value time which reduces lead time.
To obtain a continuous flow, Value Stream Map needs to be
applied at least every two months in order to eliminate any
potential wastes and to improve the manufacturing process.
Application of all these improving methods helps to enhance
the materials flow in the assembly line in a short time. Also by
introducing the supermarkets and the kanban shelves, the
storage space will get much smaller and that will eliminate
any unnecessary operations between the workstations.
VII. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
After applying Value Stream Map in the process flow, we
can see improvements that took place in the manufacturing
process. In figure 3 we can see the cycle times on each
workstation, before and after applying Value Stream Map.
There are significant changes between the two cases. On the
workstations where cell is formed, the time has significantly
been reduced.
Department Current
State
(Days)
Future
State
(Days)
Improvement
Costing 9.75 9.25 ORACLE implemented
as an information hub
throughout the business
process, which reduce
waiting delay.
QAD Admin 1.75 0.63
Purchase 2.13 1.63
Marketing 6 5.5
Production
Head
1.06 0.56
Engineering 7 3.9
PED 7.6 5.25
Inward Stores 0.24 Eliminating inward
stores.
Foundry 4.4 2.87 Cutting machine moved
near to cell, which
reduces material
movement by 11 km.
De-Burring 14.6 10.68 De-burring machine
moved into cell.
Final
Inspection
3.8 Operator trained himself
to do final inspection to
reduce inventory and
lead time.

Fig.2 Future state map


4 Copyright 2013 by PSGCT

Fig.3 Cycle time on each work station


Table 1.Improvement matrix
REFERENCES

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